Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Za

Made pizza over the weekend (and Monday night):

Joy of Cooking pizza dough recipe (a packet of yeast dissolved in 1.5 cups 85-degree water with 1 teaspoon salt and a couple tablespoons oil added to 4 cups flour, kneaded for about 10 minutes then left in a bowl covered with a damp cloth for a couple of hours to rise. I like to punch it down and let it rise once more before rolling half out at a time for pizza skins)

Pizza sauce (1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes in puree somewhat reduced over medium heat with the addition of about a tablespoon each of dried basil and oregano. yes, you could be fancier, but this pizza rocks as it is) - this makes enough sauce for five medium pizzas

Most of a green bell pepper, sliced at medium thickness. To be cute, you could cut it into ringsAn equal amount of yellow onion, thinly slicedAbout 1/3 pound of good ol' Italian sausage (pinched into little balls)

freshly shredded Parmesan to sprinkle over the top

Roll out the dough as thin as you can make it. It is pretty springy so this won't be super thin, maybe 1/4 inch thick. This makes a skin about 15-20 inches around.Sprinkle your pizza pan with cornmeal and place the skin on the pan.Paint the skin with sauce to about 3/8 inch from the edge. Don't paint it to the edge or you will be sorry later.Sprinkle with mozzarella to your liking. But you should still be able to see sauce under the cheese...Top with peppers, onions and sausage. Do not stack toppings at the center of the pizza: This will screw up both baking and slicing.

If you've followed these imperfect directions, you will have a pizza ready for the oven that looks like it has way too much in the way of toppings, especially of peppers. But they'll shrink and it will be tasty!

Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes (until the crust is rigid and has a nice suntan on the bottom) and eat!

1 comment:

This would be better with two adjustments: better mozzarella (if you use fresh mozzarella, use freshly grated Parmesan, too - fresh M isn't at all salty) and more reduction/addition of tomato paste to the sauce.